The Liebster Blog Award

It is about time I publish this post. I don’t know how time slips away and I have been abandoning the blog a lot. I just get caught up in the day and I have not been going out of my way to make crazy dishes. I am cooking mostly simple Lebanese stuff or quick meals to put on the table because the weekend is usually spent on the run.

Although this is not a cooking post but as I said it is big time that I had it out there.

We got another award! The Liebster Blog Award! It might not be fancy or famous, but I think it is the Christmas gift for the blog. (Yeah this is how long it has been! – Insert bashful face here-).

Blogging can get a little tough, sometimes you lose the motivation and sometimes life happens and it alters the facet of what you meant your blog to be. It grows with you, changes and molds itself with your experiences. Sometimes you even ask yourself what is the point, till you get a post like, a comment or even a new follower who makes you want to not disappoint them.

When you get an award, it is along these lines, it tells you that someone out there sees that what you are doing is worthy of recognition, and it is always a nice thing to hear or know.

The award was given to The Taste-Buds by Aliya from Bring to the Boil. I want to thank her deeply for the nomination, noting that since her questions are more on a personal level than blog level, I will be answering them from my own perspective and if my co-authors want to join in and make their own sequel, I say the more the merrier :).

The rules of the award are:

1. Post eleven facts about yourself.
2. Answer the questions the tagger has set for you and create eleven questions for people you’ve nominated.
3. Choose eleven people (with fewer than 200 followers) to give this award to and link them in your post.
4. Go to their page and tell them.
5. Remember, no tag backs.

The 11 facts:

That was the hardest part for me, the eleven facts about myself!

1. I crave vegetables if I don’t eat them two days in a row! You can call the phenomenon my veggies withdrawal symptoms.
2. I have a thing for fashion, I am even starting a business. Clint gets a kick out of people telling me they like my shoes or bag or whatever I am wearing.
3. I love chocolate. Maybe this is not a surprising fact, since a lot of people do, but I think I take it to the next level. I even once ordered a chocolate lava cake with chocolate sauce and chocolate ice cream.
4. I can speak three languages fluently. I would like to learn more if possible, starting with Italian.
5. I like cooking for others, not so much for myself anymore.
6. Kids from 0 to 6 have an unexplained fascination for me. They would stare at me if I am around, even if I am not looking at them. True story.
7. Kids over 6 don’t realize I am an adult, a lot of the times.
8. Unlike most people, I don’t mind going to the dentist.
9. People always think I am half my age or at least 10 years younger. (Woohoo!)
10. I like to drink my coffee slowly while reading or surfing the internet.
11. I don’t like talking about myself, this award made me realize it even more! LOL

The questions  I was asked:

1. What is your favorite food?
   I don’t have a favorite food, it is relative to the moment and the mood, but my absolute favorite cuisines are Italian and Lebanese. Mediterranean food is my comfort food. And chocolate of course (does it count as food?).
2. What is your signature dish?
   Hmmm… Tough one… Pasta probably, if I invite someone for dinner for the first time, odds are pasta will be on the menu.
3. What is your best memory?
   Visiting the US back in 2010 and spending Christmas in a totally different setting than what I knew.
4. What do you dream about most often?
   Returning to Italy and visiting new places.
   Although I have another lifelong dream: Never having to clean anything ever again and actually have someone to do it for me! (Hey! I can at least dream about it)
5. Who is your embarrassing celebrity crush?
   I don’t have celebrity crushes, never even had them as a teen.
6. What is your favorite word and why?
   Affogare. I fell in love with it when I heard “Caruso” sang by Andrea Bocelli for the first time. It means to drown and I thought it was one of the most musical words I have ever heard in my life.  (See a pattern here?)
7. Give us a foodie tip
   Cook your eggs on medium to low heat.  I discovered recently that they turn out better that way. It might not be much of a tip, a lot might know it, but this is what came to my mind.
8. Give us a travel tip
   When traveling forget everything that worries you at home and enjoy as much as you can the place you are visiting. As far as you know, you might never be there again.
9. Do you have any annoying habits?
   Probably. None of them is annoying to me lol. If they were I will end up changing them.
10. Recommend a very obscure, but interesting website
    Does my business page count? If it does here it is, it is a Facebook shopping page: https://www.facebook.com/vivianemstyle. If not, this is a useful site, since we all use PDF’s one way or another, it converts files into PDF: http://www.freepdfconvert.com/
11. What is the most interesting or bizarre statistic you have ever heard?
    I had to look this one up! I don’t usually memorize statistics. But here is a couple of weird ones (I could not choose which was more bizarre!!):

– 13 people are killed each year by vending machines falling on them. (Murderous vending machines!)
– One in three dog owners say they have talked to their pets on the phone. (Why?)

And one this is plain hilarious:

– The Pentagon uses an average of 666 rolls of toilet paper each day. (LOL, Need I even explain?)

If you want to read the whole list, here is the site: http://weirdfacts.com/fun-facts-a-stuff/3061-percents-and-stats.html#ixzz2FLeh0fBD

My Questions:

1. What is the best gift you ever received?
2. What is your favorite drink?
3. What is your dream destination?
4. What is your favorite spice (besides salt and pepper) or herb?
5. What is the dish that always flops with you and that you would like to master?
6. What is an elegant outfit in your opinion?
7. What is your least favorite quote?
8.  Which famous person would you never go out with?
9. If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?
10. When was the last time you tried something new?
11. What is the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?

Eleven Blogs I nominated:

This was the other hard part. I don’t know eleven blogs with under 200 followers. The blogs I follow are pretty established. So I put some of my favorites anyway even if they don’t fit the description, but I think they deserve the award.  Some  I have just discovered for the sake of this award, so I am also sharing!

1. http://domesticdivamd.com/
2. http://fragoleefarfalle.wordpress.com/
3. http://matt.wordpress.com
4. http://www.tasteofbeirut.com
5. http://bentozen.wordpress.com
6. http://www.simmerdownfood.com/
7. http://mymotherinlawcallsmedomesticated.wordpress.com
8. http://laurenkavanagh95.wordpress.com/
9. http://dangerinthekitchen.wordpress.com (this blog just started but I think the idea of it is very interesting, I think I will be one of their first followers!)
10. http://melittabran.wordpress.com/ (this is not a food blog, more of a fashion blog, so it appealed to me. To be fair it has some food posts hehe)
11. http://onlyamoosewould.com/